


Aber Yourself a Very Merry Christmas

by holdmeclosertinytaron



Category: British Actor RPF, Taron Egerton - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:09:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29760135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdmeclosertinytaron/pseuds/holdmeclosertinytaron
Summary: With only two weeks to go until Christmas, it wasn't the best time for Y/N to get dumped. But it happened, and she had two choices...to stay in London where none of her family were and risk getting drunk and turning up at her ex's house to scream at him, or to go away for Christmas. Deciding to be smart, she chose the latter, opting to head all the way to Aberystwyth.She expected a cold, lonely winter in a stranger's house with all the Christmas movies that she could find on Netflix and Amazon and all the wine and chocolate that she could physically consume. What she wasn't expecting, however, was to fall completely head over heels for someone. Especially not when she was there to get over someone else.Who would have thought that getting dumped could turn out to be so great?
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

December 11th, 2020

“Oh fucking hell,” you whisper-shouted when your phone vibrated loudly on the coffee table in front of you, startling you immensely. It probably wouldn’t have startled you quite so badly had you not been on an already particularly tense part of Sherlock, your tv show of the evening. 

Trying to pause the tv quickly so that you didn’t miss anything over the sound of your phone, you leaned forward at the same time to try and grab your phone from the table, feeling the twinge in your back that would no doubt turn into a full pain as the evening went on. It was already close to six in the evening which meant that it would only be a couple of hours until you took your meds for the night, thankfully. 

Your boss’ name lit up your lock screen, instilling the worst wave of anxiety you’d experienced in a while. He’d never called you so late in the evening before, especially not on your day off. Your heart sank as you hovered your thumb over the green answer button, knowing that something was about to happen that wasn’t positive. Even as you lifted the phone up to your ear, your heart pounded in your chest. 

You’d answered the phone millions of times in your life, with most of your job revolving around calling people and having important conversations, yet the anxiety that came with answering the phone hadn’t yet subsided and you had to psych yourself up before answering the phone or calling someone. When you first started a conversation on the phone and for the first fifteen or so minutes of it, your anxiety was sky high. Even when you were talking to somebody that you’d known for a long time. 

“Have I missed a deadline?” You rushed as soon as your phone was to your ear, a thousand different potential scenarios of you having missed a deadline running through your mind. “If I have I am so, so sorry. Let me know what it is and I’ll get to it right now!” 

“No, no it’s nothing like that so don’t worry yourself about it,” he chuckled back softly. 

The cheerfulness of his voice cut through the damp winter evening like a warm knife cutting through butter. Outside was dark with the rain pelting against your balcony windows, threatening to shatter them at any moment. But Eric’s voice was like a summer afternoon, bright and happy with the promise of warmth. The kind of warmth that made your insides hurt and ruined your sleep schedule. 

“I do have a proposition for you, however,” he continued. “Of course, you are more than okay to say no if you want to but you are by far the best social media post creator we have in the firm.” 

Eric was lovely, a gentle man in his late 60s simply trying to keep up with the ever evolving world around him, and you appreciated having him as a boss just as much as he appreciated you as an employee. Which is probably why you found it so difficult to say no to the favours he asked of you. You would probably do his dry cleaning for him if he asked, despite that not being in your job description. 

“And that’s a real job title, is it? A social media post creator,” you said, a hint of amusement lacing your voice. “What kind of post do you need? I’ll get it sorted for you.” 

“I could do with an Instagram post as soon as you have the chance. But I’m sure that you already have the programme open ready, don’t you?” 

It was hard to hold back your laughter and you failed miserably anyway. It surprised nobody at the firm that you were always prepared. One thing that you loved more than anything in the world was your job. You’d worked hard to get to where you were and overcame so many things that tried to get in your way. It made you feel good to accomplish something that other people could enjoy and you adored Eric and your other colleagues which helped a lot. 

“I really am that predictable,” you laughed. “But yes, the programme is open and ready to go. What do you need it all to say?” 

“Kyle and Allaya are announcing their engagement and want us to put something up for them. So it’s part announcement and part congratulatory.” 

You stopped breathing. 

There was no way. Either you’d heard wrong in your anxiety-fuelled brain or Eric had gotten his names mixed up, which wouldn’t have been a surprise. But Allaya had been in a relationship for the full three years that she’d been working at Jacob and Sons and never once had she said that it’d been Kyle she was with. And likewise, Kyle hadn’t told you that he’d been in a relationship. He wouldn’t be with you and someone else, would he? 

“I’ve forwarded you some photos from Allaya that we’d love for you to put in as well, if that’s alright. You are a superstar, Y/N, really.” 

“Yeah, thank you.” You weren’t paying much attention to what he was saying because you physically couldn’t concentrate on anything but the gut wrenching feeling of your heart shattering into a million tiny piece on the floor in front of you. “Just so we’re clear…it is Allaya Fitzgibbons and Kyle Adams you’re talking about, yeah?” 

There wasn’t anybody else in the firm with the names Allaya and Kyle so you knew full well that they were who Eric was talking about. And it was all becoming obvious. Obvious that you’d been played. There were times when she would walk by your office and Kyle’s hand would slip away from your thigh. Of course, you’d assumed that he wanted to stay professional at work so continuously brushed it off. 

There were times when he said that he couldn’t stay the night because he was busy but then he’d suddenly be ‘going out with friends’. The times when he would sleep with you and then rush off somewhere else and there were times when he would smell like perfume and he would brush it off. 

He’d lied to you for years. Three whole years. He’d told you that you were the only person he wanted to be with and that he was trying to find a way to be with you wholly. But of course, he was a narcissistic, pathological liar and everyone had tried to tell you but you were so head over heels for him that you hadn’t believed them. Oh how you wish you’d believed them. 

“Yes, that’s not a problem is it?” 

Yes. 

A very big problem. 

“No,” you lied through your tears. As far as you were concerned, you’d done pretty well to not breakdown at the beginning of the conversation, when all you thought was wrong was that you’d missed a deadline. That would have been easy to cope with compared to the way you felt in that moment. “Not a problem at all. I’ll have it ready for you within the hour.” 

“I knew I could count on you, my starlet. I can’t wait to see what you come up with. See you Monday.” 

“Bye.” 

As your phone screen went back to a photo of Kyle and yourself from a few weeks prior, when you were happy and none the wiser of his double life, you burst into tears. You were so happy in the photo, laughing at some silly joke he’d whispered in your ear as an older lady was taking your photo. Your eyes were screwed shut and you were happy. So indescribably happy that you didn’t think that anything could ever burst your bubble. 

How wrong you’d been. Tears streamed down your face while you sobbed, pulling every ounce of air from your lungs to the point of suffocation. You gasped for air, trying to unlock your phone in a hurry so that you could remove the photo from your lock screen. It wouldn’t have mattered if you’d chosen the photo of you ugly crying from the week before. Just as long as you couldn’t see his face. 

Your sobs were uncontrollable, loud and exaggerated as you leaned forward just enough to grab the glass of wine that you’d poured yourself to enjoy while watching Sherlock. Not that you could enjoy the episode anymore. And you didn’t know if you’d ever be able to watch an episode again within wanting to sob for eternity. You tipped the glass of wine back, gulping it down in one and wiping your eyes with the back of your hand.

“Fucking-stupid fucking-bitch, fucking, AHHHH,” you screamed, throwing your phone onto the armchair infront of the doors, needing to get it away from you when nothing was going right. You couldn’t unlock it, and then it kept screenshotting and crashing. 

If merely seeing your lockscreen and the photo of Kyle and yourself hurt you, looking through the photos that Erica had forwarded to you from Allaya of their relationship physically broke you. It shattered your heart into even more pieces, stamping them into the ground as though they were nothing but the butt of a discarded cigarette, the fire dying down into grey ash that would blow away with the slightest breeze. 

There were more photos than you had realised, and you knew that you would have to choose between them so that the post wouldn’t be too long. There were more photos than you thought there’d been originally; ones with her on his knee and holding his face as she kissed his cheek, ones of them throwing snowballs at his family’s chateau in France, ones of them on intimate dates by the river, ones of them abroad on holiday, ones in different seasons and just regular, couple-like ones. 

The photo that stung the most, however, was the one where he’d just given her a Christmas gift. You could clearly see the gift from the angle of the camera and it was the exact same necklace that he’d given to you for Christmas. It was still on your dresser, unworn and collecting dust. You didn’t know why you felt weird every time you went to wear it but you did, so you never wore it. And it all seemed to make perfect sense. 

You didn’t even know how you’d got to your bedroom, with the necklace box open and the silver chain staring back at you. When Kyle gave it to you, you’d cried happy tears and tackled him to the ground in kisses. It made you happier than you’d been in a long time and you never wanted that feeling to go away. But as you started at it knowing everything that you did, you couldn’t see anything but tat that made your insides hurt. 

Lifting it up from the box, you grabbed the chain in both hands and pulled, trying to break it like he’d broken you. You couldn’t bear the thought of it being in the flat all cosy and nice while your heart was breaking. Even if it didn’t break, you wanted rid of it. There was no way that you could keep it. Not now. 

When you finally sat back on the sofa, necklace in four pieces on your dresser with the pendant in the bin, you had a somewhat clearer mind and was able to breathe enough to sit and write the post for Eric. So, you grabbed your laptop from the coffee table as you crossed your legs on the sofa and started to write. 

You wrote about Kyle and Allaya as two individuals, about the brightness they radiated onto everyone around them, enchanting people in the best possible way. And then you wrote about them from a relationship point of view. A point of view that you wish you didn’t know as well as you did.

With the photos that Eric had sent you all open on the left side of your screen, it was as though you’d lived their relationship alongside them. You’d done all of the same things in the pictures; gone to his parents chateau in winter and had snowball fights with your morning coffee, had small picnics by the river and laughed at his insane jokes while someone else took a photo of you, celebrated Christmas together and gone on holiday in the middle of the year. 

As you read through the post again, you realised how absolutely insane it would sound to anybody else. No one else knew about the relationship between Kyle and yourself so for you to have written about him in a relationship just didn’t make sense. Though you didn’t know if you could even call what you had a relationship. It was more like friends with benefits but with more than friends. So you scrapped everything you wrote and decided to start from scratch. 

‘Everybody here at Jacob and Sons would like to congratulate two of our own, Allaya Fitzgibbons and Kyle Adams on their recent engagement. Here’s to a lifetime of love and happiness!’ 

Before you could start to piece together the photos that you’d been sent into some form of order, you tossed your laptop onto the sofa next to where you were sitting and stood up abruptly. You couldn’t bear to live in your flat for another second when there were so many remnants of him around. You fished out the bin liners from the junk drawer in the kitchen, opened one up and started to throw everything in that reminded you of him. 

You didn’t care what it was or how fragile it was, you needed it gone. The mug that he’d given you as a gag gift the time he went to Italy ‘for work’, the necklace that you’d broken into pieces, the three t-shirts you’d refused to let him have back, a pair of his boxers, joggers, a hoodie, the bedsheets that you’d bought together, the toothbrush and spare toiletries you’d bought so he didn’t have to bring his whenever he stopped over, and a photo of the two of you that sat on your bedside table. 

Every tiny thing that you could find, you threw it into the bag. Even the cushion cover you’d bought on one of your many shopping excursions went in. 

By the time that you had finished, you had stopped crying and the pain that once cursed through your body was starting to turn into a deep fire threatening to erupt a volcano. You were angry. More than angry, really. For three full years you’d been lied to and treated like a piece of shit on the bottom of someone’s shoe. For over 1,000 days. For three years you’d told yourself that everything would be okay and that he didn’t often stay the night because he didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. You’d lied to yourself even more than he’d lied to you, and that’s what hurt you the most. 

You’d torn your flat to pieces, not wanting to wake up the following day with anything that belonged to him or reminded you of him. Even the cushion cover you’d bought on one of your shopping excursions was in the bag. At first you thought that you would put the bag in the bin and pretend that it didn’t matter. And then you thought about burning everything in it piece by piece until it was something you could sweep away. And then you realised that what you really wanted to do was take it to his house, put it on the steps and walk away.

Maybe he would get to it before Allaya or maybe she would get to it before him. You didn’t care, because you’d be long gone before either of them found it. It had been a split second decision, to go away for Christmas, but as soon as you’d thought about it, you knew that it was what you needed. 

Your dad and step mum were in Germany skiing for the week of Christmas so you wouldn’t be able to go to their house and your mum and step dad were in Scotland for the same length of time so it was either you stay in your flat alone or you get away too. And it was a pretty easy decision. 

So with the flat an atrocity around you, you opened google and typed ‘places to escape to when your boyfriend who was never really your boyfriend gets engaged to his girlfriend that you didn’t know about and leaves you a heartbroken mess’. Just typing that and realising how insane the whole situation sounded left you in tears again. You could barely see through them, and the only thing that you could see clearly was an article about toxic relationships and you snotty laughed. 

If you really wanted to get away and move on from the situation, you needed to be serious about it and look properly. So you searched for secluded cottages available for hire, deciding that being secluded from everyone and everything would be better for you than being in another city where you’d see nothing but loved up couples. 

The first cottage that pops up is seemingly perfect. A two bedroom place just outside of Brighton with the most beautiful views overlooking the countryside with an equally gorgeous garden that had a tree swing near the back fence and a forest of evergreens behind it. You didn’t even think twice before you opened the messages tab and asked the owner if it would be available for a few weeks over Christmas as you were absolutely desperate to get out of London. 

You were a tad disappointed when the owner, who introduced herself as Lilly, apologetically told you that she would be staying in the cottage over Christmas herself. Of course, despite your disappointment, you couldn’t blame her for wanting to spend the festive period there. It screamed winter wonderland. You told her that she had no reason to apologise and that you hoped she had a brilliant Christmas. 

Your fingers danced in the air above the keyboard as you went back onto Google, trying to figure out what to search for instead. Maybe getting further away would be better than staying close to London. At least if you were further away you wouldn’t be tempted to go to Kyle’s house if you got drunk–something you were very likely to do. 

Taking a rather large gulp of wine, you started to scroll down the page again, stopping dead in your tracks when you see one particular photo. You’d already fallen in love. To the point where your mouth was agape and you were staring at the screen without blinking. It was perfect. A beautiful white terrace house on the harbour in Aberystwyth, Wales–somewhere you’d never been before–with a tiny little balcony on the first floor for the smallest of tables where you could rest a drink. And yet, despite how small it looked on the outside, it made you feel cosy and relaxed. 

Being by the water had always helped to clear your mind, removing the negative thoughts that swam around. The mere thought of being by the sea for a few weeks made your stomach flip in the best possible way. And as you clicked through the rest of the photos, you found myself falling deeper and deeper in love. 

After being turned down with the Brighton cottage, you were more than a little bit weary to get in contact with the owner of the house. You must have typed a message out fifteen times, deleting it each time when you found something you didn’t like. Just introducing yourself wasn’t enough but telling her your whole story was just as bad. So in the end you settled for ‘Hi, I’m looking at getting away during the festive period and wondered if your house in Aberystwyth is free? No worries if not’. 

Waiting for the reply was almost as daunting as actually sending the message, so you put your laptop on the sofa next to you and grabbed your phone instead. Though it barely took a minute until your laptop pinged with a notification and you were grabbing it to pull onto your knee again. Had anybody else been in the room with you, they would have looked at you weirdly for the little squeal you let out at the message. 

‘Hey! It was going to be free but I might have to stay there myself. My fiancé just left me and I really need to get away for some time. But right now that’s looking slim because everywhere it fully booked or not available x’ 

You hadn’t even thought about what you were going to say before you started typing. Your fingers worked faster than your brain, not stopping for even a second to process anything. 

‘I mean, you could always stay in my flat if you wanted? It’s in London, overlooking the river and is quite small but it’s somewhere away from Wales. Obviously you don’t have to say yes but the offer is there should you want to take it x’ 

The time between sending the message and getting a reply wasn’t as long as it had been the first time, and you were a little more excited for the response. If Delilah, as she’d introduced herself, decided that she did want to spend Christmas in London then you would have somewhere to stay and you could get an escape from reality for a while. 

‘You’re joking? That sounds amazing! Are you sure? X’

You smiled to yourself when you read the message. And then you read it again, and again, and again, needing to make sure that you’re read right and that you weren’t seeing things. 

‘100%! We both need somewhere to stay to get away from life and we both have places that are going to be free. I don’t see why not, just as long as you like cats because I have one and I can’t take him with me. If you’d rather call me, we can sort plans out properly? x’

‘Perfect. And don’t worry, I love cats. x’ 

******

Unlike the first phone call of the night, when Delilah called you, it didn’t startle you. Truth be told you were rather excited to answer it and make plans for the Christmas period. An hour later after making plans and chatting for a while, you realised just how messy your flat was, and you were planning on leaving the following day while Delilah had the day off. Dread washed over you as you thought about cleaning it, and nearing eight at night, you got up and read to clean. 

Christmas music would be your saving grace, filling the room around you with a sweet melody that you could sing to. It played through your laptop that sat on the coffee table which was, weirdly, the cleanest part of your flat. Probably because there was nothing that reminded you of Kyle on it so you didn’t have to tear it to pieces to get rid of things. 

You started with the kitchen which was possibly the worst room in the flat, bagging all of the rubbish and starting the dishwasher. You scrubbed the tiles and the inside of the over, you cleaned the sides and put out new, fresh cleaning products so that you wouldn’t look like a weirdo who has dirty sponges and you dragged the spare bedding out of the cupboard to put on when you woke up. 

Not a single spot was left untouched. It had either been wiped down with copious amounts of antibacterial spray or scrubbed with the brush and soapy water. Any rubbish that you’d picked up, and the stuff from the bins had been bagged and put by the door with the other bags, something you found rather ironic. The only thing you had to do was to hoover but being almost ten at night you decided to wait until the morning when it was socially acceptable. 

You wouldn’t say that you were ecstatic with the level of cleanliness in the flat but it was far better than it had been. And it would be easier to give everything a little tidy and clean the following morning rather than waiting up. It wasn’t until Spud, your cat, started making noises at the bathroom door that you remembered Delilah would be watching him. So you grabbed a notebook and pen from the junk drawer in the kitchen and wrote a list of instructions for her before double checking there was enough food and litter to last him.

It was close to 11pm when you finally climbed into bed, bottle of wine in one hand and laptop in the other. After cleaning you’d decided to put a Christmas film on, needing something to entertain you while you were packing a suitcase to go. The problem with most Netflix Christmas films, however, was their romance heavy plots. Not really what you needed after a breakup. And that’s when the wine came out. 

With the duvet wrapped around your lower half, your pillows smushed nicely behind you and only your small bedside lamp on, your room was cosy and partly helping you feel a little bit better. Until your phone started ringing and his number came up. Though you simply groaned and declined. The last thing you wanted to do was talk to him. You could barely think about him without getting frustrated and teary eyed. 

But he was consistent and tried again, and again, and again until you couldn’t handle the noise anymore and answered. Albeit in annoyance. 

“What do you want?” You asked harshly, already fed up with him.

“Please, baby, I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you. But I love you and I want to be with you.” 

Your eyes rolled on their own and your heart started to pound in your chest. “Have you broken things off with Allaya. Sorry, let me rephrase that. Have you broken things off with your fiance?!” 

“Not yet. But I will.” 

You laughed out loud at him, wiping under your eyes to get rid of the tears and chugging some wine. “Then you’re clearly not serious about wanting me. And even if you had left Allaya and tried to make things right, I wouldn’t want you again. You’ve fucked me around for three long years, telling me that you love me and letting me become addicted to you to the point where it hurt when I didn’t see you for a couple of hours. And then what? I get to find out from somebody else that you’ve been in a relationship this whole time?” 

Anger ran through your body. From the tips of your toes to the top of your head. You could see nothing but red and you wanted to scream at him. Thankfully your conscious kicked in and you didn’t shout because the last thing you wanted was a noise complaint. But you wanted to. You really, really wanted to. 

“Y/N. Please, baby.” 

“How dare you call me baby! Don’t you ever call me that again. I’m not your baby and I never want to talk to you again. I never fucking want to talk to you again. I don’t even want to see your bastard face!” 

“YN-”

“Bye, Kyle” 

You hung up the phone before he could reply, tears streaming down your face as you stared at your phone screen for what felt like the hundredth time that night. Rather than finishing the movie like you’d planned to do, you closed your laptop and shoved the corkscrew back into the bottle of wine, putting them both somewhere safe so that you could snuggle down in bed. 

Kyle kept trying to call you back but you ignored him, and the text messages that he was pouring onto your phone. He really could never understand needing space and that’s the only thing you needed. You needed time to clear your mind and process what had happened before talking to him properly.

December 12th, 2020

“Ahh, Y/N! Just the person I was looking for,” Eric called as you walked out of the lift at work. 

“Eric, hey! What can I do for you?” 

“The post you sent me last night…it got corrupted on its way to me, is there any chance you could come and resend it please?” 

You didn’t _want_ to resend it because that would mean opening it up and seeing Kyle’s face, but you’d made a promise and you couldn’t go back on it so you nodded your agreement, following your boss to his office that sat at the very back with windows that overlooked the lower city. Unlike usual, you walked slowly behind him, the lack of sleep catching up to you the more you were awake. 

“I actually have a favour to ask you, if I’m being honest,” you spoke up as you pushed the door closed behind you. “I’ll pop this onto your computer and then am I alright to ask?” 

“Of course,” he smiled. “Ask me anything at all.” 

Falling back onto the spare seat in his office, you let out an exasperated sigh. “I need a break. Like a real break. I come here day after day and I sit at my desk and do work, and answer the phone and make sure everyone else is doing their work and I’m tired. I’m exhausted and I need a break.” 

It was word vomit and you knew that. Eric, however, didn’t seem to react to what you were saying, completely unprovoked by your words. In fact, he smiled at you sweetly while giving you a nod that made you aware that he was understanding. 

“You do deserve a break. And I’m assuming that was your way of asking for one?” He asked through a chuckle, ejecting your USB stick from his computer and handing it back over to you. 

“Yes please.” 

“What kind of break were you thinking? Time off?” 

You shook your head. “I was thinking more of working from home than time off, to be honest. I don’t need anything major, just some time to work on my own time. Like if I want to work from my bed or while watching a film.” 

Eric nodded, grabbing his diary from the side of his computer, opening it up and clicking his pen open. “With the look of things, you haven’t taken time off in years.” 

“I had time last year,” you countered. 

“Y/N, the only time you had off was for your hospital appointments. You haven’t taken time off for you in so long. So, I insist that you take three weeks for yourself. Enjoy Christmas and the New Year the best that you can and come back fighting in January.” 

“Eric, I really cannot have three weeks off. I want to do my work. I just need to do it from home.” 

“I’m telling you that you can have three weeks off. If it helps, I’ll email you with the odd job that needs doing so that you can feel like you’re doing something.” 

You contemplated your options. If you didn’t take the time off, which was being offered to you on a silver platter, then you would lose your holiday time before the new work year set in. But if you did take it off, there was no doubt that you’d even get three days into it before being so absolutely bored that you would call Eric and beg him to give you work. Neither option sounded brilliant, if you were telling the truth. 

“Can I work for this week and then just take two weeks off instead?” You asked after a while, realising that you really should take time to wallow and enjoy the festive season, even though you would be alone in another country with wine and Christmas films. But it was something at least. 

“If you’re happy with that, then that’s what we’ll do. But please, let me know if you need this week as well. Especially if your pain starts to pick up.” 

“I promise,” you smiled, finally sitting up straight and brushing your trousers down on your legs. “That’s the beauty of working from my bed though. I can rest and still get work done.” 

Eric shook his head playfully. “Workaholic. That’s what you are, my love. But go, enjoy the next three weeks and I’ll see you in the new year.” 

“Thank you, Merry Christmas, Eric.” 

“Merry Christmas. I’ll send you an email later today about some things that are coming up early next year because I’m sure you’ll have some great ideas.” 

You smiled at him before leaving his office, taking a deep breath as you walked down the corridor towards your own office. Before leaving, you needed to grab your auxiliary cord for the drive to Aberystwyth. Things were going great and you felt a little lighter for getting the time off that you really did need but as soon as you saw Allaya waltz into the office in what was clearly an engagement bubble of bliss, your heart dropped to your stomach. 

It was in no way her fault, and you didn’t have anything bad to say about her. But the thought of her being engaged to the man who had lied to you and led you on for so long left a bitter taste in your mouth. Even from the other side of the office you could see the shiny ring on her left ring finger, glistening in the overly artificial light above. She looked gorgeous, with her hair curled perfectly and draped over the fronts of her shoulders, her makeup absolutely flawlessly applied to her face and an outfit that meant business, and for a split second, you couldn’t blame Kyle for wanting to marry her. 

“Good morning, Y/N,” she beamed as she got close enough to see you. 

You swallowed the lump in your throat and forced a smile onto your face as you reciprocated her hug, holding her loosely for a couple of seconds before pulling away. “Morning, Allaya, congratulations.” 

“Thank you! I was so shocked! Kyle told me that he had been planning on proposing on Christmas Eve outside with all of the Christmas lights but that he just couldn’t wait. How romantic is that?” 

“So romantic,” you breathed, trying not to cry there and then. 

On numerous occasions you’d told Kyle how you would love to be proposed to one day; outside on Christmas Eve surrounded by thousands of Christmas lights before going inside and drinking hot chocolate by the fire while in that lovely engagement bubble that everyone talks about. So to say that it hurt to hear Allaya say that would be an understatement. 

“Anyway, I best get to Eric’s office, he says you’ve made a post or something?” 

“I have. I’d love to come with you to see how you like it but I’ve got to shoot off, I’m going away for a couple of weeks and if I don’t leave now, I’ll not get there until late tonight. Congratulations again, and Merry Christmas.” 

“Merry Christmas, Y/N.” 

You couldn’t get out of there fast enough. The bottom of your Vans squeaked against the marble floor of the reception area as you spun around to press the lift button, waiting impatiently for it to get to you while hoping and praying with everything in your body that Kyle wouldn’t walk out of it. Thankfully he didn’t. At least he didn’t step out of the one you wanted. Just as you turned around after pressing the ground floor button, the lift opposite opened and Kyle stood there until he saw you. At which point he tried to run to get in the lift with you but the doors closed before he could, which had you sighing in relief as a tear ran down your cheek. 

******

“BUT THE VERY NEXT DAY, YOU GAVE IT AWAY. THIS YEAR, TO SAVE ME FROM TEARS, I’LL GIVE IT TO SOMEONE SPECIAL!” You sang loudly as you drove down the motorway, Eggnog latte from Starbucks that was probably cold by that point in the cup holder and filling your car with the sweetest of aromas that screamed Christmas in the very best way. 

You were a good two hours into your four and a half hour drive and you’d listened to your favourite podcast and a few songs that always made you feel better. But the longer you were driving, the more you had time to think about how sad you were so in a mad attempt to distract yourself from your own, dark thoughts, you asked Siri to play you Christmas songs, in which you had screamed at the top of your lungs. 

Once bitten and twice shy, I keep my distance but you still catch my eye. 

“Hey Siri,” you shouted over the music, “play the next song.” 

What had started out as a good song to sing away the blues to, the lyrics were too much for you to think about and so it was far better to change the song. Thank God It’s Christmas started to play and made you smile. 

“Thank god it’s Christmas,” you whispered to yourself, genuinely happy that it was finally the end of a year and close to the beginning of something new, which normally you would find far too cheesy and annoying but in that moment you didn’t care one bit. “And thank god I’m not in London, ey Grey? As much as I miss you, I’m kinda glad that you aren’t here right now because I know for a fact that you would be going to fuck Kyle up and as much as I would love to see that happen, he isn’t worth it. And you know what? Fuck him. Fuck him and his fucked up ideas of a relationship. I’ll be better off without him, right? God I hope that I’ll be alright without him.” 

The rest of the song played but you didn’t sing. Instead, you remembered the times that your brother and yourself would dance around the house on Christmas Day while dinner was cooking, laughing and joking with your coordinated outfits and toys scattered all over the floor. Christmas back then was simple and you envied your past self and got annoyed that she had taken it for granted. You couldn’t even begin to describe the things that you would do to go back to the time in your life when things felt good, and when you had your brother there to help you if you needed it. 

“I miss you, big brother,” you whispered almost inaudibly, “so fucking much.”


	2. Chapter Two

December 12th, 2020

“Well I’m glad that you got there safely, at least,” Emma, your step-mum spoke through a chuckle. “I just wish that you’d told us that you were going away before you left, you could have come here with us.” 

“I really appreciate the thought and the offer but I feel like being around people that I know and am close to isn’t the best idea right now,” you told her truthfully. “As it is I could cry at the drop of a hat. It would only take one look from you or dad for me to break down completely and that really isn’t what I want to do right now, obviously. I promise that I’ll call and text you guys regularly though to keep you updated.” 

You sighed quietly to yourself, tilting your head to the right and forward ever so slightly so that you could see the harbour without your car getting in the way. Despite the gentle wind that rustled through the trees on the hill at the other side of the water, the water was calm, crashing softly against the small stone wall that separated it from the land. Every ounce of worry and anxiety that had been rushing through your body for the past 24 hours had gone, replaced with an immense feeling of calm that you hadn’t experienced in a long time. 

“We would appreciate that,” Emma said through what you knew was a sad smile. Even without being able to physically see her, you could sense her facial expressions from the tiny shifts in her voice. “You know we’re here for you always and if for some reason you change your mind and decide that you do want to come over, let us know and we’ll get you sorted, okay?” 

“I will. Thank you, Emma. I love you both so much.” 

“We love you too, sweetheart. Now, go get some rest and don’t forget to take your meds. That’s from your dad, he says to make sure that you’re eating right too.” 

A light chuckle left you as you pictured your dad telling Emma to tell you to eat and take your meds. He’d been the same ever since you were diagnosed with fibromyalgia, constantly checking that you’d eaten and rested and had your meds. At first it had been overwhelming and you’d complained on numerous occasions to him for being overbearing but with time, you grew to like it. There were days when you were so out of it from the pain that your dad reminding you to take your meds was needed completely. 

He’d been the one to order your prescription if you’d forgotten and he would collect it and take it to your flat so that you didn’t have to try to remember something else. He would often tell you to stop worrying your little head because it’s what dads are for and he was more than happy to do it because you were his little girl and nothing would ever come before you and your health. 

“My plan is to go have a little nap to try and rest after the journey and then head out for dinner. I saw a pub on a street not too far away so I think I’ll take a gentle stroll there and eat before coming back for the night. I can explore the town tomorrow in the daylight.” 

“Good thinking,” Emma replied swiftly. “Well I’ll let you get off to go nap. I love you, sweet girl. Be safe.” 

“I love you too.” 

You kept the phone to your ear even when the line had gone dead, your arm too exhausted to move even the tiniest amount. The sea continued to lightly crash against the wall and you had a hard time bringing yourself back from staring at it. Zoning out was one of you specialties. Even when you try your hardest not to zone out, you do. Whether that be while you’re in the middle of a conversation or in the middle of doing something important. You’d called it your speciality after you zoned out while writing an email for work. You were typing and making complete sense but you’d zoned out completely, only being able to hear the clicking of the keys as you typed without looking at the keyboard. 

Sometimes it was helpful to zone out as you were able to write and get things done without the overbearing thoughts that often filled your brain. But other times it was the most frustrating thing. More often than not, you would find yourself zoning out while in the middle of a conversation with someone for work and would have to ask them at least twice to repeat what they had said as you couldn’t remember for the life of you. 

It was another five minutes before you pulled the car key from the ignition, shoving it into your handbag before checking your gear stick and handbrake. When you were sure that your car wasn’t going anywhere down the small hill that you were parked on, you pushed the door open, groaning to yourself when you felt just how dead your arms were. The wind, that had looked gentle in the near distant trees, was actually rather harsh, whipping across your skin and sending a sharp pain shooting through your whole body. 

The house sat close to the sea with the living room overlooking it from the large bay window. Delilah had warned you that she hadn’t had a chance to decorate for Christmas but if you wanted to, there were decorations in the cupboard under the stairs. Though she’d made sure that you knew you didn’t have to if you didn’t want to. You’d chuckled and told her that you may just take her up on it, telling her that you, yourself, hadn’t managed to decorate for the season. 

Just as Delilah had let you know, she’d left a key in the plant pot next to the front door, something you could never do were you in London. Unlike the door that led from the outside to the inside of your tower of flats, Delilah’s front door was nowhere near as difficult to push open. So much so that you pretty much fell into the house when the door swung open. 

You’d decided that you were going to leave your big bag of clothes in the car until later in the evening, far too exhausted and pained to get them before heading into the house. You didn’t even look around before treading up the stairs and towards the room that you assumed was the bedroom. Much to your happiness, you had assumed right and as soon as you pushed the door open, you could see the big bed that sat in the middle of the room, covered in the most luxurious looking bedding with dainty daisies all over it. 

Not even in your wildest dreams could you imagine having found a bed so soft. And when you sat on the edge, ready to take your coat off and climb in, you let out a sigh of pure content. Your legs sank into the memory foam mattress, transporting you from a seaside in Wales to the top of the clouds where you had no cares in the world and could see the world below you, small and not important in the grand scheme of things. 

Letting yourself fall back onto the bed, you grabbed the corner that was to the left of you and threw it over your body, cocooning yourself in a duvet of bliss, sighing happily and letting your eyes fall closed. You promised yourself you would only sleep for an hour and then go out for food. 

******

When you finally opened your eyes again, it was pitch black outside, the moon reflecting brightly off the surface of the sea which had started to get a little choppier with the wind that had picked up. You grumbled to yourself a couple of times before sighing loudly, throwing the duvet off of your body and tiredly swinging your legs over the edge of the bed. 

Temporary paralysis filled you as you screamed out in pain, the sharp shooting sensation travelling from the tips of your toes up to your hips the only thing you could think about. And when you put your feet on the ground to try and stand up, there was more pain. So much pain that you fell back down, frustrated and fed up and wanting nothing more than to lay down and go back to sleep. But you were hungry and needed food even if you were in pain. 

“Maybe a pizza?” You asked yourself through a sigh, trying to figure out what the hell you wanted to do. “Or Chinese?” 

Truth be told, you wanted pie and mash from the local pub, and nothing else sounded quite that nice. So, you braced yourself and flung your legs back over the bed, only a little lighter that time, and sat up gently, grabbing your phone and taking a deep breath. 

Three text messages and a missed call from Kyle. You should have known that he would be trying to get a hold of you at some point, you just hadn’t expected it to take so long. The last thing you wanted to do was get into a conversation with him because you knew for a fact that if you so much as attempted to call him, you would start sobbing uncontrollably and probably beg for him to take him back. So you ignored the texts and took yourself downstairs to the living room where you’d discarded your coat and handbag as you walked in. 

It was colder outside than it had been when you first arrived in Aberystwyth. And darker. Lifting your phone up just enough that the screen would light up, you were shocked that it was only just coming up to five in the evening. Perfect time for food though, you thought to yourself. You wiggled the door handle a few times once you’d turned the key, making sure that it was locked before setting off on a walk. 

Of course, you weren’t completely sure where you were walking but that didn’t stop you. You walked towards the water and turned left away from the main road. You’d noticed a lot of houses near the seafront on your drive in so thought it might be nice to walk a little deeper into the town, hoping that you would find places that you could visit during your trip. 

And you found some glorious places, not that you were surprised. There was the most beautiful little bookshop with a name that you couldn’t pronounce in the slightest but it was full to the brim with books that held history and stories that you could only dream of knowing. There was a little bistro café a short walk away with red and white striped awning and the most glorious looking food in the display cases that you promised yourself you would try before you left. And an antique shop with blue walls nothing but a small ‘coastal vintage’ sign to tell you what it was. 

You’d been walking for a total of ten minutes and already you had fallen in love with the quaintness of the town that was so clearly filled with character and charm. It was like something out of a story book, so utterly perfect that you were having a hard time believing that it was real. Yr Hen Lew Du, the pub that you’d stumbled upon and entered in a chaste decision to eat there, was a lot nicer on the inside as it had been on the outside. 

Outside there were white walls with accents of dirt. The two picnic benches that had been placed outside to sit at were broken and looked just about ready to collapse should someone be brave enough to sit on them. The nicest looking part of the outside was the sign, that somehow looked brand new and in good shape. Should you turn right from looking at the pub, you would see the hill that was visible from the house and should you turn left, you would see a narrow road that leads to the beach past more small shops and cafés. Across the road from the pub was a hair salon and a business hub, two things that you would never have expected to share the same building. 

Inside the pub, the lighting was warm and dim, much like a traditional British pub. There was a small bar occupied by a young guy no older than 21, and multiple wooden tables dotted around that were mostly filled by men watching the rugby. You could smell stale cigarette smoke and spilled beer, a smell that had probably been there for a lot longer than you cared to think about, and you could feel the atmosphere all around you. It was an atmosphere filled with camaraderie and happiness. 

It made you feel weirdly nostalgic. It wasn’t often that you would go to a proper pub like the ones your brother took you to when he was meeting his mates and girlfriend. Back in London you would often go to bars with colleagues and friends from uni, but never a proper pub. Stepping into the pub felt like stepping into your sixteen-year-old body, completely oblivious to the things that would happen later in the year. And if you were telling the truth, it felt nice to know that you could go into such a place and not break down into tears thinking about G and the life you wish you still had. 

You scanned the pub for somewhere to sit, finally finding a table in the far corner that, with the look of things, hadn’t been occupied by one of the many men complaining about France being dirty Rugby players. A couple of them would move out of your way as you weaved your way through them to get to the table, with a couple of them being far too engrossed in the game they were watching to even notice you trying to get past them. 

As you sat down on one of the two seats that were at the table, you let out a breath of relief. And also a breath of pain. Aberystwyth was far hillier than you had first thought it would be. Every which way there was a hill to climb up and after tensing your calves for so long, they were in a lot of pain. The good thing, you thought, was that you would only have to walk downhill to get back to the house ready for bed. 

Your phone vibrated in your pocket, prompting you to let out a slightly frustrated sigh. Though you felt guilty when you checked the notifications, seeing your dad’s name pop up with a sweet little message that warmed your heart. 

‘Hey kid, I hope you know just how much I love you. Be safe x’ 

You smiled to yourself and texted him back telling him that you loved him too and that you couldn’t wait to see him in the new year when he got back from Italy. You also told him that you missed him. Which you did. A lot more than you thought you would. Even though you regularly spent the lead up to Christmas not with him, you were never more than a short drive away from him. Now you were in two completely different countries and unable to drop by for a cuppa when you wanted. 

He replied pretty quickly, telling you that he missed you also but that he wanted you to have fun and enjoy having time to yourself. If you were to be honest with him, it would have been absolutely perfect to spend time on your own to really relax and have fun. And with what you’d seen of the town already, you were bound to not want to go home. 

“Hello, miss. Would you like anything to drink or eat?” a thick Welsh voice spoke from next to you. 

It startled you a little because you weren’t expecting anybody to come up to your table. Nor were you expecting someone to ask for your order. Being a pub, you’d assumed that you needed to go to the bar to order yourself a drink or something to eat so it was a little shocking to you when you didn’t. 

“Oh, umm…I haven’t really looked at the menu but I really fancied something like halloumi fries if you have them?” 

The guy who stood near your table with a notebook and pen in his hands nodded, scribbling something down before looking back up at you. “That’s fine. Anything with them? We have onion rings that go well with them. And a sweet chilli sauce?” 

“I’ll take both of those, please,” you said quickly, thankful that someone was able to offer you something rather than having to guess.

“And what can I get you to drink today? The house wine is a rich red with fruity notes.” 

You thought for a second, trying to decide between two different drinks. “Can I get a Malibu and diet coke, please?” 

The guy looked at you for a second and you knew that he was seeing whether or not he needed to ask you for ID. It wouldn’t have mattered even if he did ask as you always carried your driver’s license in your handbag no matter what. Before he could decide whether he needed to ask for it or not, you grabbed it and handed it over. 

“I always have it just in case and you didn’t look too sure as to whether you needed to ask or not,” you chuckled. The guy took it thankfully, checking it over once before handing it back to you. “It’s novel to not have someone apologise for asking for it too. Makes me feel less old.” 

You both laughed quietly as the man before you took your order down. He could only have been a teenager, younger than the girl behind the bar, for sure. His shoulders were still quite narrow on his body and he had that look of innocence as though he hadn’t really faced many challenges or seen things that would strip him of his innocence. 

“Your drink will be with you in a minute or two and I’ll bring your food out when it’s ready,” he said through a smile, nodding his head as you thanked him and walking away to go get what you’d ordered. 

Taking a few minutes to really take in your surroundings, you realised that the pub you’d happened to stumble across was more like the pub back home than you’d thought. The walls were separated in the middle by a wooden rail, with the top half being an off white thanks to the smoking that happened years ago before laws came into place and the bottom half the same kind of wood. The kind of wood that got insanely cold so when you leant back a tiny bit into it, you froze all up your arm. 

It was warm and cosy, for the most part, as well. Sure, the lighting was patchy with some bulbs being brighter than others and the carpet being stained from god knows what over the years but it felt homey, like you could go there for an hour after a long day and just feel ease. That must have been why Grey enjoyed heading there after uni with a couple of his mates. Either that or he was just fed up of being home. Had it been the latter you wouldn’t have blamed him. 

Being home wasn’t the best while your parents were still together. In fact, you could barely go one evening without a massive row kicking off and you hiding in your bedroom alone and crying. If Greyson was home, he would go into your room to comfort you, putting a film on the old tv you had that only had the video player at the time, and hugging you until you fell asleep. Even in your adult life you wished you still had that comfort from him on numerous occasions. 

“Your drink,” the Welsh voice spoke up again, pulling you away from what could potentially be a rather triggering thought pattern in your head. “Your food will be no more than ten minutes.” 

“That’s perfectly fine, thank you.” 

As soon as the guy had turned his back, you lifted the glass to your lips and took your first sip, letting your eyes fall closed as the alcohol trickled down your throat and your brain switched to being happy rather than anything else. It was a slippery slope and you knew that. You’d seen firsthand how an innocent drink every now and then could turn into something much worse that was hard to come back from, and for a while you’d promised yourself that you wouldn’t ever drink to avoid that from happening but then you went to uni and it was hard to say no. 

You didn’t drink often, but that didn’t matter. It could have all still led to you following in your brother’s footsteps. 

“I’m sorry, there are no other seats available and I could really do with a drink and something to eat, do you mind if I join you?” Another voice spoke. But this time it sounded like someone English rather than Welsh. “Of course, I completely get if you’re waiting on someone or don’t want to sit by a complete stranger.” 

You placed your glass back on the table and put the coaster on top as well as your hand so that nobody could spike it and looked up at the person who had spoken. He was tall, dark and handsome, respectively. His face was soft and gentle but his jaw was strong and sharp; his eyes were the most dazzling blue, like the ocean on a hot summer’s day, impossible to not look at; his lips were delicate looking, and paler than his skin which was oh so soft looking. Short stubble covered the lower half of his face and despite normally disliking the way it looked, there was something about it on this handsome stranger that you liked. 

“Ummm…” you said finally, pulling yourself away from a daydream of him. “Yeah you can sit there. I’ve just ordered something to eat but feel free to join me.” 

“Thank you,” he said quickly, shrugging off the dark denim jacket that adorned the top half of his body to reveal a black tee underneath that clung to his arms in the best way possible. “I normally sit nearer the bar but with the rugby that’s never going to happen today,” he chuckled, sitting down and placing his phone face up on the table. 

“I struggled to find this one when I got here so I get that completely,” you said, trying not to stare at him. “If my dad was here he’d love it, he loves rugby.” 

“Not a sport for you then, no?” 

“I like it,” you admitted, “but not enough to understand all the rules. I know that if a team gets a try, it’s five points and then they get to have a go at a conversion which gives them two extra points, and there’s a scrum. Oh and I know that the French are dirty players.” You laughed when one of the many men watching the game turned to you and cheered in agreement, getting everyone else in the room riled up again. 

The man in front of you looked impressed. “I can honestly say that I’ve never met anybody who knows that much about rugby. You would think that being from here, I would love the game just as much as these guys but I really, really don’t. Don’t tell them this but I’ve never really liked it.” 

You had to hold a laugh in, enamoured by the man before you who was openly admitting in the middle of a busy pub filled with rugby fans that he didn’t really like rugby. Had anybody heard him, there would probably have been screaming and you had to chuckle. 

“Don’t let them hear you say that. If there’s one thing I know about rugby fans it’s that rugby is their number one and they don’t understand how people can not like it.” 

“Noted,” he laughed. “I’m Taron, by the way.” 

He offered his hand out and you took it, taken back by how soft his skin was compared to how strong his grip was. But it wasn’t a bad grip. It was the kind of grip that made you feel weirdly secure, all of your worries washing away down the drain. 

“Y/N,” you offered in return. “I thought you sounded a little familiar, my brother used to love watching Kingsman.” 

Taron laughed gently, tilting his head to the side in appreciation. “Your brother has good taste.” 

“He did,” you smiled sadly. “You said earlier that you’re from here but you definitely do not sound Welsh.” 

“It’s a long story,” he said through an amused smile. 

“I’ve got time,” you countered, trying to hold back your smile when Taron laughed at you softly. “But obviously you don’t have to tell me. I’m just…intrigued.” 

“How about I go get myself a drink and order some food and then I’ll tell you all about it? But in exchange you have to tell me why someone who sounds like they’re from the Brighton/Surrey area is in a tiny Welsh town in the run up to Christmas.” 

You nodded, “that sounds perfect. Would be nice to not eat alone.”

****** 

“So your dad is in Italy and you chose to be…here?” Taron asked, completely baffled by what you were telling him. “Why wouldn’t you go to Italy and be on the slopes? That sounds like a Christmas from heaven for me.” 

“It’s hard,” you admitted quietly, taking a bite of your last halloumi fry. “Christmas without my brother is harder than I ever thought it could be and each year I’m reminded of him more and more and it’s hard. It’s hard on my dad too, obviously, but he is affected differently. He has this get up and go mindset and he’ll think about G for a while and then kind of like come into another body and be dad for the day. And I love that he’s found a way to cope with the grief but I can’t do that. When I’m with him I’m reminded of the things we used to do as a family and it’s so hard. Especially around Christmas.” 

Taron listened fully, taking in every word you were saying and remaining silent until he was sure you had finished talking. “I understand that. It’s hard not having a loved one around at this time of year. It still hits me that my gran isn’t here and I struggle a lot to compartmentalise my grief from everyday life. And it’s not something that should be taken lightly. If you feel like you’re struggling, you know what to do to help and that’s all you can do.” 

“I’m glad someone understands it. The amount of times I’ve heard ‘he’s been gone for four years, you should be over it by now’ is so high and it makes me feel like a failure for still being affected.” 

“Oh my god no,” Taron exclaimed a little louder than he’d planned to. So much so that a few of the men watching the end of the rugby turned to look at him and he turned to you in embarrassment while you burst into a fit of laughter. “Only me…only bloody me. I know it’s easier said than done but you need to remember that you are not a failure for feeling grief still. Four years isn’t as long as people think and when there was a strong bond that was broken, it takes a while to get back to how you used to be. If you do get back to that.” 

To say that you’d only met Taron 45 minutes prior, you were willing to open up to one another. There was something about the way that he spoke to you that reminded you a lot of your brother. From the way that he would show his disgust to the things people were saying to the way that he would lean forward on his seat that tiny bit when listening to what you were saying, as though he was really trying to listen to you and only you. It was nice, a reset you very much needed. 

“It’s weird,” you mumbled, “how I feel like I could talk to you about anything even though you’re the perfect stranger.” 

“I could say the same about you,” he responded, lifting his glass of beer to his lips and gulping some down, his Adam’s apple bobbing out even more as he did. “Where are you staying, if you don’t mind me asking?” 

You eyed him cautiously, but smiled nonetheless. “I’ve just called you a perfect stranger and your response is ‘where are you staying?’. You do realise that’s something a creepy stranger would say, right?” 

“I do. But if I was a creepy stranger you wouldn’t be here having a drink with me and letting me steal your onion rings, would you?” 

“Touché,” you laughed. “I’m on Rheidol Terrace. Right near the harbour.” 

Taron nodded knowingly. “I know that place. There’s a little bench that overlooks the water. I went there once with an ex when I asked her to be my girlfriend. I must have been about 13 at the time.” 

“Ever the romantic, you are, eh?” 

“I try, I try. No, I was only asking because it’s dark and looks like it’s going to get a bit rainy tonight and I wouldn’t want you to be going back on your own through the smaller roads. It’s not a bad place here and I know that you would be safe but I also know that women have a fear of walking alone in the dark because of stupid, idiotic men who think that it is funny to terrorise women. I guess what I’m trying to say is, would you like me to walk you back? So that you aren’t on your own?” 

You quickly tapped the screen of your phone, not realising how late in the night it had got. “I would actually really like that, thank you. To be honest, I can’t remember my way back anyway so if you know where you’re going then I trust you and would love the company.” 

“It’s my pleasure.” 

******

The walk back to the house had been nice. Taron walked at your pace, which you felt guilty for as you walked slowly. Well, you hobbled more than anything. After the long drive and not a lot of sleep the night before, you were starting to flag a little and you knew that before long you would be in tonnes of pain. 

Taron had asked you about your job and life in London, agreeing with you on all of your favourite places to eat with friends. You’d asked him about being back in Wales and around his family and you couldn’t ignore the beaming look he gave you when you asked about his little sisters. It was clear that he was proud of them and proud to be called big brother. Throughout the walk, you’d talked about things that people would only find out about on the third, fourth, fifth date if they were together but there you were, two hours into knowing him, able to name his mum, sisters, the street he grew up on and the name of his first pet. 

By the time you got back to the house, you probably could have given his national insurance number with how much you knew about him. But he knew just as much about you and it was refreshing to have a conversation with someone that was so real and raw, and completely easy. There were no awkward silences, no major differing opinions, no topic uncovered, and no points where you didn’t want to talk to him anymore. 

“Well, this is me,” you said once you approached the house, your car, thankfully, still sitting right out front proudly. “Oh shit I need to get my suitcase from my boot.” 

“If you unlock the car, whichever one it is, I’ll grab the suitcase out for you, I don’t mind,” Taron offered, giving you a warm smile as he did. 

“That would be amazing, thank you. This is me,” you said as you tapped the top of your little Citroen C3. “She’s a little old but she does the job.” 

You unlocked the car for Taron and watched as he pulled open the boot swiftly, his bicep tensing as he grabbed the handle of your suitcase to pull out. You grabbed your body pillow from the back seat as he shut the boot and as soon as both doors were closed, you locked the car, pulling the driver’s side handle twice to make sure it was locked. 

“Thank you,” you said through a smile. “I’m at this one.” 

“You’re staying in Delilah’s place?” 

“You know Delilah?” you asked, genuinely baffled that he might know the woman whose house you were staying in. 

“I do,” he laughed. “She’s my mate’s girlfriend. But if you’re here, where is Delilah?” 

“Oh god, this is kinda awkward…” Taron stayed silent, almost worried about what you were going to say next. “Delilah is in my flat in London…going through a breakup. I feel bad for telling you because it seems like your friend hasn’t but I can’t not tell you where she is. With what she’d told me, they’ve very recently broken up and not really told anybody so maybe your friend is planning on saying something?” 

Taron nodded. “Knowing Nathan, he’s going to be in bits. They were so lovely together. I’ll give him a bell in the morning and see how he is. But it was nice meeting you, Y/N. I hope to bump into you again before you go back to London. Or maybe one day we’ll bump into one another there.” 

“Maybe we will,” you chuckled. “Thank you, again. For keeping me company and walking me back. Not many people would do that.” 

“You are more than welcome. I’ll see you, Y/N.” 

With that, he was turning around and walking away from you and towards the water to your right. 

“Taron,” you called, listening to your heart rather than your head. “Do you maybe want to come inside?”


	3. Chapter 3

December 15th, 2020 

Two days in bed meant that you wondered if leaving London was a good idea at all. After your first night in Aber where you hadn’t slept the best at all, you’d struggled to find comfort in anything the day after, pain shooting through your whole body no matter how you got laid or sat. not even your hot water bottle and heated blanket helped. You’d barely eaten, barely slept and barely done anything at all. 

The bed was cold beside you when you finally decided to get up and move, void of any heat from any form of human body. But you weren’t expecting anything different. You never were. Even if you weren’t alone, you’d have felt alone, you’d have felt alone. You’d woken yourself up at silly o’clock in the morning after having a rather awful dream about Kyle getting down on one knee and professing his love for you only to turn to the side to ask Allaya to marry him instead. Tears fell down your face in your dream…and in real life. 

It must have taken you at least an hour to go back to sleep after that, a pillow clutched in your arms and pulled right into your body to try and feel something that resembled another human being. And it worked for a little while, lulling you back into a sleep that you managed to stay in until you woke up again at something past eight in the morning. 

The pressure behind your eyes was so intense that morning that you could barely feel any of your usual pain. Not the twanging in your back as you tried to move that was like knives splitting your back open, not the dull ache of your thigh from the way that you laid in bed (not that laying any other way stopped it from hurting), not even the random tightness of your hand that made it hard to hold your phone. 

Your eyes could barely stay open, far too tired to face the day, and you were ready to succumb to sleep again. But you tried not to. The last thing that you wanted to do was lay back down and go to sleep, fed up of being in bed and not exploring. Though you knew for a fact that you wouldn’t be able to explore that day. Not if you were to be smart. So you decided to have one more day of not exploring and then when you woke up the following day, you would wrap up warm and walk in the opposite direction to the way you walked on your first night. 

Something about the way the light from outside streamed in through a tiny gap in the curtains made the corners of your lips turn up into a genuine smile. You’d always loved going on holiday and waking up early to the light streaming into your room. For years you had always been the first one awake, or one of the first awake, so you were able to spend the first hour or two of the day wrapped up in the living room with a cuppa tea and your work. If you did that, you were bound to be productive for the whole day, which was never a bad thing. 

Deciding that it was probably best if you got up for the day, partially because you didn’t want to be stuck in bed for another second but partially because you needed a wee and you couldn’t hold it for any longer, you draped your legs over the side of the bed to stand up, the pain in your body finally making itself known, and stood up. You cursed to yourself as you tried to ease the pain by holding your hand over it, even though you knew that wouldn’t do anything. Your painkillers were on the bedside table so you grabbed them as well as your phone and duvet and walked through to the landing. 

You had a quick wee, well, it was a quick one because you’d been holding it for so long that your bladder was about to burst open, and then trudged down the stairs and into the living room which was the brightest room in the house. Of all the curtains to forget to close, you had to forget the living room curtains where people could look inside and see the mess that you’d let on your first night. The grey suitcase that you’d stuffed all of your belongings into for the trip was open under the window, with those belongings hanging out from where you’d tried to find pyjamas, your coat and scarf were draped over the armchair and two empty wine glasses, and a half empty bottle of white, were on the table in front of the large sofa. 

You groaned out loud to yourself, annoyed that you hadn’t tidied up before heading up to bed those nights before and annoyed that before you could even begin to think about climbing onto the exceptionally comfortable sofa, you had to tidy up your mess. And that included repacking your suitcase so that you could take it upstairs with you at some point. If you couldn’t pull it up the stairs yourself later in the day, you would take items out a couple at a time and carry them up yourself. Just as long as you had clean clothing upstairs. 

The duvet fell to the floor by the front door with a gentle thump, creating a pile of pure comfort that you wished you could climb into and fall back to sleep rather than tidy up the mess that you had made. But you didn’t let yourself get comfortable and fall back to sleep, even if it did sound rather tempting. Instead, you trudged further into the living room and started to pack up your suitcase again as you’d told yourself to. 

“Oh, there you are,” you exclaimed in excitement when you pulled one of your favourite hoodies from the case, holding up to your chest and breathing deeply. It wasn’t a necessarily amazing hoodie but it was the best hoodie you owned. Fully black with a little ‘G’ embroidered into the wrist area. 

G for Greyson. 

You hugged it to yourself for a while, breathing in the last few lingering parts of his cologne, trying not to cry. Of course, you had the exact bottle of cologne that he used, he’d only opened the bottle the week before the accident, but you didn’t want to use it. There wasn’t much of Grey that was considered valuable and your mum took a lot, leaving your dad with his clothes and a couple of his trophies that he’d got when he was younger. 

The only two things that you’d specifically asked for were his black hoodie, the one that he’d wear pretty much daily to watch movies with you, and his cologne. Your dad understood why they were the things that you wanted and didn’t argue in the slightest, passing both of them to you with a sad smile, watching as you cried into your brother’s hoodie. Sobbing, really. Your shoulders lifted with each tiny breath you were managing to take and you brushed him off when he tried to hug you. You just wanted your brother back. 

You pulled the hoodie over your body, something that you hadn’t done in a very, very long time. The hoodie was normally used as a form of comfort blanket, your arms wrapped around it and the hood near your nose so that you could smell it when you needed that comfort. You never wore it. 

Pulling it over your body felt like stepping back into your teenage years, Grey on the bed next to you and a Christmas film on the telly. Even when it wasn’t Christmas. Your go-to Christmas film to watch together was Elf, with grey quoting certain parts continuously, just trying to make you laugh. And it did make you laugh, but mostly when he’d got the words wrong and you had ammunition to make him embarrassed. 

Instant relief flew through your, warming you from the inside out. You smiled lightly, silently telling your brother that you loved him before finishing the suitcase. It didn’t take too long to sort out and you took it out into the hallway by the stairs ready. 

Unlike the evening where you had to tidy and clean your flat from top to bottom after finding out about Kyle getting engaged without telling you he was in a relationship and wrecking your home just before offering it to someone to stay in for a while when you were gone, it didn’t take too long to tidy up Delilah’s living room. When you’d sorted the suitcase, the room looked better instantly so you knew it wouldn’t take much to finish. 

Luckily enough for you, there was a dishwasher in the kitchen under the counter near the sink, meaning that rather than standing and washing the dirty wine glasses that would hurt your back and hips to no end, you could put them in there and leave them for a while until you could stand and wash them. There was a single cupboard open still so you closed it quickly and walked through to the living room. 

As the pain behind your eyes subsided, the pain everywhere else in your body started to make itself known more. You winced lightly as you walked back into the living room, thankful that your painkillers were on the table alongside your phone. You quickly turned back into the kitchen to turn the kettle on for a cuppa tea. 

While you waited for the kettle to boil, you looked around the kitchen to find where things belonged so that you could put them away if you needed them. The plates and bowls were the easiest to find as they were behind a glass door above the dishwasher and the pans were in the cupboards next to the cooker. 

When your cuppa was finished and you could go chill for a bit in the living room, you walked through and sighed in relief. But then you saw your coat and groaned again. You were tempted to leave it and not sort it until later in the day when you went back to bed or the next time that you went to the toilet. You knew that you needed to sort it though. Especially if you wanted to be able to relax some. 

It wasn’t until you’d grabbed your own coat and scarf that you noticed the dark denim jacket underneath them. The exact denim jacket that Taron had worn the night that you met. And it took you a couple of seconds to register that it was actually Taron’s jacket and that he’d forgotten to grab it before he left, which made you feel bad because it meant he would have walked home without it. 

You picked the jacket up and lifted it to your nose, taking a deep breath and letting his cologne fill your senses. Before he’d left, he’d given you a comforting hug, whispering lightly into your ear while you sobbed into his chest, frustrated that you were letting your emotions get the better of you. 

Taron’s cologne was clean and fresh with a warming aftershock that left you happy and content from deep with your soul. Kyle, on the other hand, was the opposite. His unusual love of Lynx should have been a warning sign from the beginning but you were so dazed by his charm and wit that you didn’t really care how he smelled. Not until you hugged Taron. Even something as silly as a cologne made you realise the difference between them. Kyle was childish and not very serious as a person whereas Taron was mature and more relaxed. 

Your eyes widened when you realised that you were still standing in the middle of the living room, facing the window where everyone would be able to see you, with Taron’s jacket in your hands pulled up to your nose sniffing it. You could feel the heat rise on your cheeks, embarrassment flooding throughout your whole body as you dropped your arms and his jacket back onto the chair, deciding to put them away at a later point in the day. 

You lay on the sofa, embarrassed and ready to sleep so you stood up again and pulled the duvet in from the hallway, draped it over the sofa and climbed into what you’d decided was going to be a cocoon for the day. Instantly you felt better, happy to be able to relax with a Christmas film or two and your cuppa tea. 

“Oh fuck’s sake,” you grumbled when you saw the tv remote on the unit beneath the tv. You had to drag yourself out of your little den and over to the remote before heading back down to your fortress of comfort. 

It took you longer to choose a film than it had to choose to have a movie day but as soon as you saw the movie cover for Elf, you knew that you had to watch it. Especially as you were wearing Grey’s hoodie. Pulling the duvet up to your chin enough that you could get yourself comfortable and relaxed, you settled further into the sofa, not hearing your phone ping with a text message as your eyes started to drift closed instantly. 

******

The ping of a text message woke you up again, the credits of Elf rolling up the screen. You couldn’t remember falling asleep but you knew you hadn’t watched much of the film so you must have fallen asleep pretty soon into it starting. 

You’d been so fast asleep that you didn’t recall waking up to reply to Taron when he’d text you again. But apparently you had, and you’d been incredibly confused when you saw your response to him which was fully legible. It would have been funny if you weren’t in so much pain and so tired still. Though you smiled at his response, wishing that more people were like him. 

Are you okay? Do you need anything? X

It was sweet of him to ask, and you were incredibly grateful, but you would feel guilty if you let him get you anything. So you started to respond to him, typing slowly while attempting to keep your eyes closed…exhaustion taking over you. 

Please let me know that you’re alright x

Despite trying to stay coherent enough to finish the text message, your eyes drifted closed somewhere after the first five words–which weren’t cohesive in the slightest– leaving Taron wondering why you’d started to type but not sent a message. You were far too exhausted to even lift up your phone to check the text he sent after your failed attempt but had you lifted up the phone, you would have heard the worry dripping from it. 

I’m worried about you. I’m coming over.

******

“Y/N, you should have called me,” Taron said as soon as you’d managed to pull the front door open after he’d knocked a handful of times. It had taken you longer than you’d originally thought to get to the door from the stiffness you felt throughout your entire body. And of course, Taron had looked painfully worried when he saw you, stepping forward so that he could hold the door open for you. “I could have helped in any way that I could. Even if that was just keeping you company and making you drinks and food.” 

He looked just as beautiful as he had the first night that you’d met him, wearing a pair of black trousers that were tapered at his ankles, a white t-shirt that was tucked in and ruched a little at his waist so that it wasn’t super tight against his front, and a dark jacket with a pattern that resembled a pair of 70s curtains that you would find in someone’s house who couldn’t let go of the past. The pattern was something that shouldn’t really look good but somehow, Taron made it work. He even made the light silver, rounded glasses that he’d perched on his nose work. Whether they were prescription or not, you didn’t know. But he looked good. Like, really good. 

The corners of your lips lifted into a delicately small, sad smile as you stepped back into the hallway so that Taron could walk in. You walked through to the living room and sat on the sofa instantly, pulling your legs under yourself and yanking the duvet back onto your body so that you could get comfortable. Your pain levels were increasing slowly, and your back spasmed regularly, pushing you out and away from the sofa in writhing pain that took a while to dissipate. 

Taron followed you into the room once he’d slipped his shoes off in the hallway, sitting at the opposite end of the sofa and chuckling at your choice of film that was still paused on the tv. Once you’d woken up from your nap and somehow managed to take some painkillers, you decided to put Arthur Christmas on, a film that you didn’t think you could ever get tired of. Despite it being a cartoon, you’d managed to pause it on a particularly funny image of Arthur running over Elves with his slippers. 

“I didn’t want to put you out,” you admitted quietly, and in defeat, after a few seconds. “And I’ve been fine, just in pain.” 

“There’s no way that you’ve been fine.” He wasn’t wrong. Not in the slightest. You hadn’t been fine but you were far too stubborn to admit that to anyone at all. “You told me that you haven’t even had the energy to hold your phone. That’s not fine.” 

You shrugged lightly, knowing that he was right but being too scared to say that he was. He eyed you worryingly, trying to figure out what you were thinking. But you didn’t give anything away. You didn’t want him to worry even more than he probably already was. 

“Have you eaten?” He asked quietly before you could say anything yourself. When he didn’t get a verbal response from you after a few seconds, only a slightly guilty look, he sighed and tilted his head ever so slightly on his neck. “Y/N, you should have called me. Was the last thing you ate the food in the pub the other night?” 

As if on cue, your stomach started to growl, catching you out before you could so much as nod your head at him. Taron shook his head and started to make tiny clicking noises with his mouth and tongue. “Do you know if Delilah has any food in at all? Or did you bring anything with you? I can nip to get some shopping from the Premier around the corner if you want me to, I really don’t mind.” 

It was your turn to shake your head as you pulled the far corner of the duvet up away from the middle of the cofa, silently inviting Taron to get comfortable and cosy underneath it with you. He’d made it known when you’d text him back that he was going to make sure that you were okay and do whatever you needed him to do, something you hadn’t expected an almost one-night-stand to offer. Though as he was making sure that you were okay, you knew he would be there for a while. Not that you minded. Because you really, really didn’t mind. 

“There’s no food in but I’m going to drive and do a shop at some point tomorrow, I think. I’m fed up with being stuck in bed and inside all day by myself so I’m going to get up and go in the morning. Or at some point in the afternoon, we’ll see when I wake up.” 

“Do you promise?” He asked in all seriousness, needing to make sure that you were going to be eating food properly while you were there. 

“I promise,” you nodded, holding out your pinky finger for him to take, promising him wholly that you would go and buy food for yourself the following day. He joined your fingers together, holding it tightly as he shook it three times, solidifying the promise. 

“Okay, good.” 

With that, a silence fell over the two of you. It wasn’t necessarily an uncomfortable silence but it was comfortable by any means. You struggled to know what to do next; talk about the weather, which was most common when faced with a weird silence, or ask how he’d been. Neither one seemed like the right thing to do but there wasn’t much else that you could think of. And with the way that Taron glanced at the tv, you, back to the tv and back to you, you knew that he thought the same as you. 

“What are you going to eat tonight?” He asked nonchalantly. “What with there not being any food in the house?” 

You turned to him and smiled, thankful to have something to talk about that wasn’t one of your rubbish suggestions. He created nerves that you’d never felt before. Nerves that bubbled so highly in your stomach that you thought you were going to float from the ground and pop there and then. Shrugging your shoulders once, you tried to think of something that you could eat. 

“I’m honestly, not sure at all,” you answered truthfully. “I feel like maybe I could do with ordering something in to save messing with the shop tonight. You could join me…if you’d like to,” you offered, secretly hoping that he would say yes so that you could spend more time with him. 

Truth be told, you hadn’t been thinking of ordering in at all. You’d been thinking about leaving dinner altogether that day and then just eating the following day when there was food in the house. But you knew that it wasn’t healthy and that if you told Taron he wouldn’t be impressed. Especially not after the look of disappointment that washed over his face when you told him that you hadn’t eaten in a couple of days. He really was the sweetest, most thoughtful person you’d ever had the pleasure of knowing…and you’d only known him for a few days. 

“That actually sounds quite nice, thank you,” he said with that same beautiful smile that he’d greeted you with at the pub when the two of you first met. Two dimples pushed their way into his cheeks, and the lines around his mouth became more prominent as he smiled at you more. “I don’t know what kind of food you’re into but there is an absolutely beautiful Chinese called Kam Sing not too far from here and honestly, I miss it when I’m back home.” 

“I love Chinese food,” you grinned widely. “Do they do any rice noodles at this one?” 

Taron nodded, reaching under his thigh to grab his phone that he’d wedged there for safe keeping. He unlocked it quickly, giving the camera a straight face so that it would recognise his features better and opening up his Just Eat app, inputting the address and hoping to god that the Chinese that he loved so dearly would deliver to Delilah’s. All the while you sat staring at him in pure bewilderment. He really was beautiful and from where you were sitting, you had the perfect view. 

You could just about see the small mole on his neck, and the tiny little bump on his nose right before the tip. You became aware of his hairline and the small patches of hair that were thinner than the rest. And you saw the lines that appeared whenever he grinned. And yet, despite the things that so many people would call imperfections, you couldn’t think that he was any more perfect. 

That scared you. It scared you a lot. You’d left London to try and get over someone and there you were, in a town on the outskirts of Wales, falling for someone you barely met. Shit, were you really falling for him? Surely not. You’d only met him twice. You couldn’t be falling for somebody you barely knew…right? 

“Here, they’ve got tonnes to choose from,” he smiled again, offering you his phone. 

His fingers brushed your delicately as you took the phone from him, trying not to lock it as you held it. You weren’t expecting the heat that radiated from him through to you either. He hadn’t been lying, there was a lot of food to choose from on the list. From chicken wings to salt and pepper chips to spicy dishes to curries to noodles to rice. Everything sounded absolutely lovely and it was when you were looking through the menu that you realised just how hungry you were. 

“I might get the duck fried noodles and some salt and pepper chicken wings,” you decided slowly, mouth watering at the thought of eating such delicious food. “What are you fancying? It’s on me. Seeing as though you’ve come out your way to make sure that I’m okay when you really didn’t have to.” 

He immediately shook his head in disagreement. “No, you won’t. It’s my treat, please. And you’ve made a bloody wonderful choice there. I think I might have to go for the wings too as a side dish they’re so good and then maybe I’ll have the roast pork with szechuan sauce too. That sounds nice about right about now.” 

“It really does,” you agreed, “but I can pay. It really isn’t a big deal. I’m the one who suggested eating out so it’s only right that I pay for it.” 

“Too late,” he chuckled, clicking his lock button twice and giving the camera the same straight face that he had to unlock it not too long before. You knew full well from using your phone to pay for your own things that he’d just used Apple Pay to pay for it and as much as you wanted to complain, you were paralysed in adoration when he turned to you and showed you his perfect smile that genuinely could light up the entire world. “Anyway, it’s only £25, hardly breaking the bank.” 

You thanked him quietly, genuinely appreciating his generosity that he really didn’t need to have towards you. “I know we’ve already established that there isn’t any food in the house but if I remember rightly, Delilah let me know that there are a couple of bottles of wine in one of the cupboards. And, we didn’t finish the bottle the other night and that’s going to need finishing before it goes off.” 

Taron smirked knowingly, nodding once and standing up so that he could head to the kitchen. As he stood up, he straightened his trousers so that they weren’t bunched up at his thighs, something that you should not have found as wonderfully captivating as you did. 

“Would you like a fork for your food? It’ll come with chopsticks but I don’t know how you are with them. I know a few people can’t use them for noodles with how slippery they are,” he asked from the doorway of the kitchen. 

“I can get the crockery and cutlery, it’s fine,” you insisted, shoving the duvet away from your body so that you could head to the kitchen yourself. Though Taron’s head peeking around the side of the archway made you sit back down quickly. You pulled the duvet back over yourself, getting yourself situated in a way that you could relax to watch tv but also eat so you didn’t have to move again when food got there. “I’ll have a fork just in case, please. But I’m normally pretty good with chopsticks.” 

“One fork coming up.” He winked at you quickly before disappearing back into the kitchen where he whizzed around skillfully, being aware of where Delilah kept everything. Including her secret stash of crisps that he would replace at some point before she got back. 

You were startled when you heard the cutlery rattle in the drawer as Taron dug his hand into it, mumbling to himself quietly. It felt weirdly normal, to have Taron there. 

“Oh jesus fuck!” 

“Everything alright in there?” You asked loudly so that he could hear. 

“Yeah,” he exclaimed. “Just stabbed myself on a spoon. Nothing to worry about.” 

“You stabbed yourself on a…spoon?” You asked, confusion laced through your voice. But you couldn’t help the chuckle that left you as you pictured him stabbing himself on something as blunt as a spoon. 

“Yes,” he said as he walked back into the living room, two wine glasses and the bottle of wine balanced on two plates with forks inside them. “I was trying to grab a knife so that I could eat without looking like an actual pig but then I stabbed myself with the corner of a spoon and before you laugh,” he paused, raising his eyebrows at you before placing the things in his hand down, “it hurt more than you would think. Delilah has sharp spoons.” 

You laughed again, finding it endearing. “I’ll let her know that she needs to get less sharp spoons.” 

****** 

“Favourite band?” 

You were cross-legged on the sofa facing Taron, the glass of wine cradled in your hands and the dinner plates on the coffee table in front of you. As you’d eaten your food, which you insisted on paying for but Taron wouldn’t let you, you’d been asking one another questions that you wouldn’t normally ask someone who you barely knew. But you felt like you knew Taron more than you did, which had been a nice change from normal. 

Taron sat the same way that you did, just at the opposite end of the sofa. He’d discarded his jacket hours before, throwing it onto the chair with his other jacket in order to pull the duvet up over his lower half fully so that he could be as comfortable as you. His lips were stained a deep pink colour from the wine that he’d been sipping throughout the evening, his glass cradled in his hands just as yours was. 

“Queen,” you responded instantly, not needing a second to think about your answer. “Favourite carbonated drink?” 

“Dr Pepper,” he said just as quickly. 

“Same!” You exclaimed happily, your smile growing wider when he chuckled at you softly. “Sorry, your question.” 

“Favourite Queen song?” 

“It’s a toss up between Love Of My Life and Hammer To Fall. Least subject in school?” 

“Maths. Never got the point of it. Least favourite swear word?” 

“Cunt. Shower song?” 

“Bohemian Rhapsody.”


	4. Chapter 4

December 19th, 2020 

With the Christmas tree that you had back in your London flat, you could get it out of the cupboard by the front door, up and decorated within a matter of an hour. The tree that Delilah had in her house–that you had to get from the basement which wasn’t ideal–was much taller and much wider, taking twice as long to decorate. Though it was worth it. 

It was topped with a gold star covered in glitter and almost 1,000 twinkling fairy lights had been intricately wrapped around the tree from the bottom all the way to the top. You’d carefully placed baubles over the entire tree, making sure that they looked perfect before moving onto the next, even if that meant placing one bauble somewhere else and then moving it back again. Whatever looked the best. 

In your quest to make the house feel as festive as possible, you’d turned on a music channel that played only Christmas music and had found yourself singing along every now and then, attempting to harmonise with whoever was singing at the time. You’d also made a hot chocolate that you’d put on the fireplace so that you could access it quickly when you needed to. Although, it was probably more like a chocolate milkshake than a hot chocolate with how long it had taken to wrestle with the lights that were finally draped evenly on the tree in front of you. 

It had taken a good 45 minutes to get them to stop falling into the wrong spaces. And you’d lost count on how many times you’d stepped back into the doorway to check what areas needed filling and fixing again. You were used to using warm white fairy lights on your Christmas tree but Delilah had gone for multi colored ones, something that made total sense when you saw the rest of the house. At one point, you got so annoyed that you wound up calling your friend over facetime so that she could look for you. And she’d found things that you hadn’t and you were able to fix them together. 

You were grateful, for you didn’t want Delilah coming home after the festivities to a Christmas tree that only looked half decent. You wanted it to look as good as it could be. There’d been numerous occasions where she’d said you should feel free to put the tree up if you wanted some festivity in the house, and you’d told her the same. It had only been a few days into her being there that she’d put your tree up, and she’d sent photos that made your stomach drop. You’d never managed to get the tree look so good and it put more pressure on you to make her tree look amazing. 

The loud ping of your phone from the other side of the room pulled you out of a dissociative state that you hadn’t realised you were in. Shaking your head slightly to fully get yourself away from your own head, you placed the last bauble in the box onto the tree, fixing another that had started to spin awkwardly, and walked to the sofa to grab your phone to see who had messaged. 

It didn’t take long for the corners of your lips to lift into a gentle smile as you read the text that sat on your homescreen. The simple act of seeing Taron’s name on your phone screen made the tribe of butterflies that normally lay dormant in the pit of your tummy flutter into a mass of nerves that you couldn’t control, even if you wanted to. You unlocked your phone quickly, already pressing the ‘text message’ bare at the bottom of the screen to reply to his message. 

Are you feeling up to the Christmas market today at all? Well, tonight, really. xx

It didn’t matter that there was a hot knife running down the length of your back or hot rods poking each of your hips with every step you took around the house, the thought of being able to go to what you classed as one of the most festive activities you could do throughout the month was enough for you to say ‘fuck it’ and struggle through. You fumbled over the words multiple times as you tried to respond, retyping the entire thing at least five times and winding up with only eight words. 

I could be, it depends who’s asking though xx

Unlike when you text Kyle, the colour of the texts to Taron were blue, which shouldn’t have made you smile as much as it did. And pretty much as soon as you’d pressed send, three dots appeared where Taron’s next message would appear and your heart beat faster thinking about his reply. 

Instead of fretting over the length of time it was taking him to respond, you grabbed your drink from the fireplace, lifting it shakily to your mouth before downing it quickly. It definitely was more like a chocolate milk than hot chocolate by that point but you didn’t mind so much as it meant that you would be able to drink it faster than you would have before. When your phone went off again, you had a skip in your step as you walked back to the sofa, trying to breathe the butterflies away. 

The girls! Not me for a change. Totally okay if you’re not up for it xx

You smiled knowing that Rosie and Mari liked you enough to want to go out with you again. The day after Taron turned up at the doorstep when you weren’t doing well at all, he’d offered to pick his little sisters up from their friends’ house where they’d spent the night. And needing to get out of the house yourself, you took him up on his offer of joining him. He told you that he was really looking forward to having company on his walk, and you were excited to finally get out of the house for a while. 

Understandably, the girls were a little weary when they first saw their big brother with a woman whom they’d never seen before. But it thankfully didn’t take them long to warm up to you, asking you question after question about why you were on holiday, how you knew Taron, what your life was like in London and if they could visit one day. They told you what was on their Christmas list and that they couldn’t wait to leave Santa some milk and mince pies before going to bed, and how they couldn’t wait to give Taron his gift. When he told them he would love it no matter what, they insisted that they’d worked super hard on it. 

The relationship between Taron and his sisters was bittersweet, to say the least. There was the love, laughter and protectiveness that was always present in your relationship with Grey, the things that you missed more than anything. Taron was over 20 years older than his little sisters whereas Grey had only been a few years older than you, but that didn’t mean their love was any different. 

The girls shrieked and giggled the most beautiful giggles you’d ever heard when he swung their arms playfully as you walked down the seafront back to their house. They screamed his name, laughing even harder when he let their hands go simply to tickle them. You were completely enamoured, to say the least. Especially when Mari, the younger of the two girls, gripped your hand tightly and looked up at you with a toothy grin. 

Taron smiled at the interaction, watching in awe as you squeezed her hand twice and swung it the same way that her brother had only minutes before. She laughed just as much with you, asking you to keep swinging her arm as you walked. Which you did, even when the heavy feeling of your arm got so bad that you physically couldn’t feel it any longer. 

The four of you walked all the way back to Taron’s mum’s house, via the corner shop where Taron bought the girls a bag of sweets each for after they’d had dinner that evening. He bought you a chocolate bar too because, as he put it, it was only fair that you weren’t left out. Mari told you that you had to wait until after dinner and when Taron told her that you could eat it whenever you wanted because you were a grown up, you leaned down to Mari and told her you promised to wait until after dinner. You offered to pay him back multiple times but he didn’t let you, insisting that 80p didn’t break his bank. 

His mum, Tina, as she’d introduced herself to you when you got to her house, was just the same as Taron; goody, playful and filled with so much love. She’d invited the both of you in for a cuppa tea to get out of the cold and you didn’t wind up leaving until almost 11pm that evening. You’d wound up eating dinner with them, lasagne and garlic bread that was one of the nicest things you’d eaten in a while, and you helped them decorate their Christmas tree. That’s what had prompted you to decorate Delilah’s, and you were beyond glad that you did. 

Instantly, the house felt more like a home than just a place that you were using to get away from London and your ex boyfriend. It was as though the tree just made the house exactly what you needed to finally enjoy yourself. It was warm and cosy, and so, so inviting. You didn’t want to be in bed when you hurt, you wanted to be in the living room with the tree that injected you with serotonin as you watched Christmas movie after Christmas movie and drank hot chocolate after hot chocolate. 

You smiled at the text Taron had sent, and smiled at the thought of his sisters asking if you could go to the Christmas market with them. They’d told you when you were at their house eating dinner that Taron was taking them to the Christmas market and you’d gotten excited with them, asking what they had planned to do while they were there. You hovered your thumb over the keyboard that had popped up at the bottom of your screen ready for you to type your response. 

For the girls? I can manage that. I’ll have to bring my crutches though, if that’s okay? Xx

You didn’t know why you’d asked if you could take your crutches because you knew that Taron would tell you to stop being silly and that it was completely fine for you to take them, just as he had the day before when he took you shopping for more food. Walking through to the kitchen, you put your mug in the sink before heading upstairs to run yourself a hot shower. It was still pretty early in the day and so you knew that you would have plenty of time to get ready to go. And knowing your luck, there would probably be time that you could waste before you left too. 

You were halfway up the stairs when your phone pinged again but you waited until after you’d started the shower before looking at it. 

Of course! We’ll stop as often as you need to. The girls are excited xx

The knowledge that Rosie and Mari were excited to go to the market with you was enough for you to get ready that little bit quicker. You text Taron back, asking what time you needed to be ready for, sighing gently when he said he would pick you up at 4:30, and that he was buying you dinner before you headed to the actual markets. Of course, you thanked him before letting him know that you were just about to jump in the shower and start getting ready. 

****** 

You were just about to finish brushing macara onto your eyelashes when Taron text you to let you know that he was outside. Normally, he would have knocked on the door and waited inside for you to finish getting ready, but with Rosie and Mari in the car and him not wanting to have to get them out of the car to put them back in, which could take a while with how intricate the seat belts were. He’d told you that he would text you when he was there though, so that you weren’t scared when he turned up. 

As soon as you’d finally closed the tube of mascara, you grabbed your coat from the sofa next to you and wrapped it around your body, turning the tv off once it was on properly. The last thing you wanted to do was keep Taron outside waiting. Well, you didn’t want to keep his sisters waiting any longer than they had to. You got out of the shower to a video that Taron had sent of the girls jumping up and down in excitement when he’d told them that you wanted to go to the market with them. It warmed your heart thoroughly and you rushed to finish getting ready so that you could see them sooner rather than later. 

“Hey,” you said as you pulled the front door open, noticing the front window of the car cracked open a few inches. The girls noticed you before Taron had, and you waved back as they waved uncontrollably at you with the widest smiles. 

“Hey,” he replied when he finally noticed you, his smile dropping completely as he eyed you up and down. And the look that would usually cause you to recoil into yourself and feel increasingly uncomfortable was completely different coming from Taron. Your cheeks heated up and you had to fight back a smile, twirling the house key around your finger as he smiled over at you. “You look really, really lovely.” 

“Thank you,” you said in response, turning around to lock the front door and allowing yourself to get out the grin you’d been trying to hold back. Once the door was locked, you checked the locked door once more before dropping the house keys into your small handbag that was hung across your upper body underneath your coat and grabbing the crutches from where you’d left them resting against the wall of the house. 

Taron watched you carefully as you walked around the front of the car and to the passenger door, wanting to make sure that you were okay. He reached over the seats to open the door for you, silently regretting not getting out of the car to help you properly. 

“Don’t forget the step up,” he warned gently when you’d pulled the car door open fully so that you could climb in. “If you pass your crutches over, I’ll pop them in the back with the girls to give you more space to get comfortable.” 

“It’s fine, honestly,” you smiled, pushing yourself up into the car and taking a few breaths before pulling the door closed behind you. Your crutches rested between your legs as you lifted your left arm to grab the seatbelt, pulling it around your body and clicking it into the holder before tugging to make sure that it was in and tight against you. “There we go, look. Sorted.” 

“Y/N,” he said slowly, knowing that you weren’t in any way as comfortable as you’d said you were. It didn’t help that you knew he knew because when he’d taken you shopping, you’d been wincing every time he went around a corner or over a speed bump because of them. “Let me move them to the back. It’s a bit of a drive because we’re technically not going to be in Aber and I want you to be as comfortable as possible. Plus, the girls will be more than happy to look after them for you, won’t you girls?” 

He looked at his sisters through the rearview mirror, laughing when the two young girls nodded aggressively. “We can look after them for you, Y/N!” 

There was no way for you to say no any longer and so you passed your crutches over to him, smiling lightly when he sighed in relief. Every little thing that Taron did made you feel more and more comfortable with him. He didn’t judge you for absolutely anything, he didn’t question you when you said that you couldn’t bring yourself to do something because of the pain, he would take note of the times you were taking painkillers and had, at times, set a reminder on his phone for four hours later so that he could remind you that you could take more. 

“Is there anything specific you fancy for dinner?” He asked you as he pulled away from the house, glancing at you quickly with his usual dimpled grin. “We can have whatever you fancy.” 

“I’m honestly more than happy to have anything. Should we let the girls decide?” 

“They’ll want McDonalds,” he chuckled. “I can guarantee it.” 

“I’m happy with McDonalds if you are?” 

“McDonalds it is.” 

****** 

Throughout the entire journey to Llanwrthwl, you’d been in absolute awe at the beauty of Wales, and in a constant conversation with Taron. There wasn’t a single second that was silent between talking to Taron and getting to know more about him and chatting to his sisters who were constantly telling you about the things they got up to at school and with their friends, and you appreciated it so much. 

And the moment you stepped out of Taron’s car and onto the pavement, you could see the market unfold in front of you and it was increasingly hard to hold in your emotions. Wooden huts lined the road where the market was taking place, each filled with something completely unique and special, a sea of warm fairy lights hung from each hut, creating a canopy of light above your head. Multiple food vendors were very clearly dotted around the place as all you could smell was German bratwurst and gluhwein. Christmas music played throughout the entire area, with the sound of people laughing and screaming at the ice rink reverberating throughout also.

The shift in atmosphere from being in the car to being outside in the bitter cold with lots of noise was something that you should have expected but hadn’t fully prepared for. Although Taron’s hand on your back as he passed your crutches helped calm you down a touch. Rosie and Mari jumped up and down in their spot. Their excitement wore off on you pretty rapidly, a bubbling of giddiness building up from the pit of your stomach and working its way up to your lips where you couldn’t control the smile that forced its way onto your lips. 

“Can we go to the ice skating bit?” Rosie asked as soon as you’d crossed the road, walking through the entrance to the market. She was tugging at Taron’s free hand, his other one rested on the bottom of your back as he guided you through the crowd. “Pleaseeeeee?” 

“How about we see what Y/N wants to do first?” He asked quietly, lifting his hand up your back softly as if to warn you that you were about to be bombarded, not that you minded. 

“What shall we do first, Y/N?” She asked quickly, waiting patiently for your response. “There’s almost too much to choose from.” 

“There is so much to choose from.” You looked around, trying to find something to do first. “But do you know what? Why don’t you and Mari go ice skating first? Gives me a chance to take a quick break before we keep going.” 

Taron pulled you into his side tightly, taking you by surprise when he planted a kiss to the top of your head. You could tell by the single gesture that he appreciated you taking his sisters into consideration, and that he was worried about you being on your feet if you already needed a break. 

“Are you sure that you’re going to be okay?” He whispered into your hair. Well, he had to speak at a regular volume because of the Christmas music playing loudly all around you. 

You simply nodded with a smile, walking through the market with Mari’s arm wrapped around your arm while you attempted to use your crutch. But you wished for nothing more than to not have to use the crutch so that you could hold her hand properly. Not that Mari seemed to mind. She loved holding your arm while you weaved your way through the masses of people in front of you, all the way until you got to the ice skating rink. 

Before you could even get to the rink, however, the girls spotted one of the most beautiful huts filled with wooden dolls all dressed in pretty dresses and cool suits. The girls are immediately awestruck by the amount of dolls and turn to Taron with big round eyes and pouty lips. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know what that single look meant, and within a couple of seconds, Taron was reaching into his pocket to grab his wallet 

Though you didn’t give him a chance. By the time he’d managed to get his wallet out and grab his card, your card was already in the machine, paying for the dolls that Rosie and Mari liked the best. 

“Oh my goodness, thank you, Y/N! I love it!” Rosie wrapped her arms around your body gingerly, the biggest smile on her face while her doll was being handed to Taron. “I love it!” 

“Thank you, Y/N!” Mari hugged you too, just from the side. “I’m going to call mine Y/N, like you! A pretty name for a pretty doll!” 

Your heart melted at how sweet they both were, and after telling them that you were more than happy to buy them for them, you continued your walk to the skating rink, Taron looking at you in complete awe the entire way.


	5. Chapter 5

December 31st 2020   
Two weeks hadn’t been nearly enough time. You needed another two, at the very least. Leaving Taron had been harder than you could have ever expected, but your dad and Emma decided to come home to welcome in the New Year and asked if you wanted to join them. Having not seen them in almost a month, you told them that you would love to spend time with them over the New Year, and then realised that you would have to say goodbye to the one person who’d made you forget about all of your worries. 

After spending Christmas Day and boxing day with his family and him, you’d asked him if he would join you for one last movie night before you had to go home. And while you were on the sofa, drinking a cheap bottle of wine and watching Bohemian Rhapsody, you tried to conceal your tears. The thought of leaving Taron, of not being able to see him everyday, of being alone again was all too much for you. 

You sat with your feet tucked under your legs and your head on his shoulder, the scent of his cologne wafting up to your nose and calming you in a matter of milliseconds. His arm snaked around your waist so that he could hold you against his body, the blanket draped over your knees more on you than him--he’d insisted that he was too warm and that you needed to be as warm as possible. 

The only time you paused the movies you were watching was when you needed the toilet, food or a refill of your wine. Those, and when you needed more painkillers, not that they were doing too much with the alcohol running through your system. And it was nice, spending the full day with Taron with absolutely no responsibilities and nothing but movies on the tv. 

That same night, you’d asked him to stay over, not quite ready to say goodbye just yet. He agreed, and held you all night as you slept, his lips pressed to the top of your head as you slept peacefully for the first time in years. Everything about Taron made you warm with safety, and happy. Oh so fucking happy. 

You cried when you drove away the following morning, Taron standing on the doorstep of Delilah’s house waiting for her to get back from London waving at you as you left. You just about managed to catch the kiss he blew your way as you rounded the corner, and that was that. You didn’t know when you would get to see him again, if you would ever get to see him again. 

What made everything worse was when you were five minutes down the road and you got a text message from Taron telling you that he missed you already. Had it not been for your dad and Emma already being back in London, you would have turned around and gone back to him. You wouldn’t have even thought twice about it. If you were being totally honest, you were tempted to go back anyway, and just text your dad telling him that your plans had changed. 

But you couldn’t. You wanted to. But you couldn’t. 

Instead, you got Siri to text Taron and tell him that you missed him too, and that you couldn’t wait to call him the following day like you’d planned before you left the house. It would kill you to not call him that night but he’d insisted that you spent the time with your dad and step-mum and that he would message you throughout the night which you were looking forward to. You told him that if you could spare five minutes, you’d love to talk on the phone with him anyway and he told you that he’d be more than happy, just as long as you weren’t pulling yourself away from family time. 

On your drive back from Llanwrthwl, you’d told Taron all about Grey and the way that he’d died suddenly thanks to an overdose after a rather terrible few days with your mother, and the way that your dad and Emma had been your rock..that without them you probably wouldn’t be alive. Taron listened to you for the hour long drive, his hand in yours as you spoke, glancing over at you every now and then when the road was clear and he knew it was safe enough to. 

For the first time since Greyson passed away, you were able to talk about him and the things you used to do together at Christmas without sobbing uncontrollably. There were a few tears when you told Taron about him, but they were happy tears. More so when Taron told you that he would have loved to have met him because you would have loved for him to have Taron. There was no doubt in your mind that they would have gotten on like a house on fire. 

“Y/N?” Your dad asked, trying to get your attention. 

He sat on the sofa facing the balcony with Emma, his feet on the table in front of him and his bottle of beer in hand. Emma’s head was tilted to the right as she watched you blink rapidly and inhale sharply. 

“Yeah?” 

Your dad narrowed his eyes at you, not fully believing that you were okay, as you’d told him that you were. “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” 

You sighed, grabbing your ankles to lift your feet under you, needing to get more comfortable on the sofa. 

Since being back in the flat, you’d realised just how uncomfortable your furniture was in comparison to the furniture at Delilah’s house. You found it increasingly harder to get comfortable. From sitting on the sofa to watch tv to laying in bed trying to sleep. It was on your list to buy new when you could, and you’d already messaged Delilah to ask her what furniture she had so that you could get similar. 

You sighed. “I just-I miss him. A lot more than I thought I would. And it’s only bloody been a day. This is insane.” 

“Who? Kyle?” 

“No!” You exclaimed, glad that you hadn’t taken a sip of your wine when your dad answered. “Taron.” 

Emma smirked knowingly. “I knew there was something going on between the two of you.” 

“That’s the thing,” you said, “there wasn’t ever anything going on between us.” 

You pulled the sleeves of the hoodie you’d borrowed from Taron and forgotten to give back over your hands to feel a little more secure. When Taorn had offered you his hoodie when you were watching a movie one evening, you’d been sceptical to take it from him. Though with a little persuasion, you were pulling the warm, comforting material over your head and around your body. 

New Year’s Eve wasn’t your favourite night of the year, and you felt totally happy wearing a hoodie and joggers while curled up on the sofa with a few glasses of wine. Neither your dad nor Emma were dressed up either. They both wore a comfortable outfit that was chilled as you had absolutely no plans other than to sit and watch some films, eat the small picky bits you’d made between you and have a catch up. 

The look Emma gave you immediately made you aware that she didn’t believe a single word you were saying. Though you couldn’t blame her. Not 100% anyway. You’d messaged her regularly throughout your trip telling her that you were off out and when she’d ask where, and who with, you’d always mention Taron. And when you called her on the phone one time, Taron had been there and had introduced himself, telling her that it was lovely to talk to her before playing on his phone so that you could talk to her on yourself. 

“Y/N…” 

You sighed quietly. “Emma, I don’t know what you want me to say, honestly. We were friends, _are_ friends, and we just got on really well. Neither of us wanted anything more, it was just companionship while I was there.” 

You were lying. Emma knew you were lying. Your dad knew you were lying. Hell, even Spud, who lay curled in the bend of your knees as you curled them up on the sofa, knew you were lying. 

“Humour me a second,” she said quickly, taking a large sip of her wine to finish the glass off. “Who’s hoodie are you wearing right now? Because I know it’s not yours.” 

Fuck. 

“Taron’s.” 

Emma smirked. “And when did he give it to you?” 

“When we had a movie night,” you answered truthfully, tightening your sweater paws over your hands. “I couldn’t get comfortable on the sofa and I was getting a bit cold so he gave me the hoodie.” 

“And why didn’t you just put the heating on?” She asked again. 

You chuckled lightly, remembering the evening as though it was the day before. Neither of you could be physically bothered to get up and turn the heat up, so Taron gave you his hoodie and he wrapped the blanket from the back of the sofa around himself before cuddling into you to share the heat. 

“Y/N, poppet, I can see it in your eyes. Taron was there the first night you were in Aber, Taron rushed to the house to make sure you were okay after you’d had those bad couple of days when you first got there, Taron invited you to the Christmas markets with him and his little sisters, Taron invited you to his family home for Christmas, Taron did everything he could for you.” 

“I know.” 

“Let me ask you one last thing,” she said gently, reaching out to grab your hand, rubbing her thumb over your knuckles. “Who wouldn’t ever do any of those things for you?” 

“Kyle.” 

Emma nodded and you gulped, trying to ignore the emotions bubbling in the pit of your stomach. It was all true. In the years that you were with Kyle, he hadn’t once done any of the things Taron had in the weeks you’d known him. He hadn’t ever cared when you were having a bad day, he just told you that he’d see you when you were back on your feet, something that you’d first thought was sweet but soon came to realise that it wasn’t sweet in the slightest. 

“And you’re trying to tell me that you and Taron were just friends?” 

“Emma…” 

“I know, poppet, I know,” she comforted, watching as your eyes started to get teary. 

“I didn’t go to another country for Christmas to fall in love with a stranger. I went to get over a shitty person who never cared about me.” 

Your dad sat up in his seat at that, planting his feet firmly on the ground so he could lean forward, resting his elbows on his thighs as he looked at you in the eye, needing you to hear everything he was about to tell you. 

“Darling, the best things come when you’re least expecting them,” he said firmly, grabbing Emma’s free hand with his and smiling at her gently. “And sometimes they come so fast that we deny the things we really want to accept. Did you mean what you said?” He asked, making sure that you were giving him direct eye contact. “That you fell in love?” 

Your shoulders lifted in a pitiful shrug. Truthfully, you didn’t know how you felt about Taron. Not after making yourself believe for almost three weeks that he was just a friend, to come home to London and admit that you were in love with him. But were you in love with him? You didn’t know. 

“I wish I knew. There are moments where I think maybe I do but then I feel like I’m overthinking a friendship.” 

Both your dad and Emma looked at you as soon as the doorbell rang, and all that you could do in response was stare back at them. You hadn’t ordered any food and none of you had invited anybody over for the evening. 

“I’ll get it,” your dad said. 

You stopped him quickly, “I got it, it’s fine.” 

Pulling the door open, you couldn’t believe your eyes. Taron stood in front of you, hand on the doorframe as he leaned forward to catch his breath, probably thanks to the lift being out of service for a couple of days. He wore the same coat he’d worn when you went to the Christmas markets, a brown, faux-suede jacket with a large collar and absolutely no warmth. Yet you couldn’t bring yourself to let him inside the flat. You couldn’t bring yourself to do anything. 

Words failed you completely. “Wh-what are you- how- what?!” 

His chest rose rapidly as he tried to catch his breath and his eyes blinked at you. Yet all you could do was stare at him. You couldn’t even invite him inside because you were so confused by the sight before you.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he admitted breathlessly. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you walked into the pub, scarf wrapped tightly around your neck, eyes scouring the place for a table. I haven’t stopped thinking about the way you wake the butterflies and the way that you are so unapologetically you. I just...I can’t stop thinking about you.” 

You stared at him, completely baffled yet so infatuated at the same time. 

“Really?” 

He nodded. “Really. I’m sorry for just turning up unannounced and for crashing your New Year’s with your dad and step-mum but I had to see you. I can’t wait until tomorrow to call you. I don’t want to just talk to you on the phone.” 

“Taron…” 

Your dad and Emma watched as the two of you stared at one another, you on the inside of your apartment and Taron on the outside, his chest rising harshly. They smiled at one another, knowing what was going to happen. 

“Y/N, I’ve never felt this way before. Ever. I’ve only ever been infatuated with someone, with the idea of something more. But then you turned up, and everything changed.” 

“It was the same for me. I didn’t go to Aberystwyth to fall in love but-” you stopped yourself. 

“But what?” He asked quickly, taking a step forward while moving his face to look you in the eye. “Tell me.” 

“But I did fall in love,” you whispered through a shy smile. “I fell in love with the town, the ocean, these two little girls who light up anybody’s world and this guy who...who makes me feel like I’m appreciated wholly and who makes me forget that my life fucking sucks at time,” you chuckled, wiping your cheek with the sleeve of Taron’s hoodie to wipe away the tears that had started to fall. 

He waited for you to continue, no longer breathing harshly from having run up the stairs to your flat, but breathing harshly because he was so nervous to be there, hearing you admit to feeling the same things he was feeling. His hands shakily reached forward to take both of yours, their heat radiating throughout your entire body. 

“When I left London three weeks ago, I wanted to get away from the man who treated me like absolute shit,” you started weakly, not trusting yourself to not sob violently, “and I wanted to spend my entire time there in the house, curled up with movies, pretending I hadn’t just been brutally broken up with. It was by chance that I walked into that pub, and it was the best chance I’ve ever taken. When I was in the pub, this guy walked up to me in this black t-shirt that was tight against his arms when he shrugged his dark denim jacket off and I found myself toppling even then. And then, it was an avalanche of movie nights, takeaways, shopping trips, family nights, christmas markets, bowling nights, everything.” 

Taron smiled at you happily, “The best three weeks of my life.” 

“I didn’t go to Wales to fall in love but here I am, standing in front of the man who quite literally swept me off my feet when I couldn’t walk, and the man who I’ve fallen irrevocably in love with.” 

“Yeah?” He asked. You nodded. “Good, because I am irrevocably in love with you too.” 

And just like that, the whole world stopped completely. The waves of the ocean stopped crashing against the shore, the lights on the Eiffel Tower stopped flickering, the trees around the world stopped swaying in the breeze, and all people froze in their space. Time froze in a way that you would never be able to describe for as long as you lived. 

He stepped forward into your flat, lifting his hands to cup your face gently, leaning forward until his nose lined up with yours and you could feel his breath on your lips. You couldn’t care less that your dad and step-mum were only meters away watching everything unfold, their excited smiles impossible to hide. All you cared about was the man in front of you, who was so unbelievably perfect telling you that he loved you. And you loved him. 

You closed the gap between you, crashing your lips onto his and sighing in relief. Everything that you’d been too scared to feel for so long poured into the kiss and you had to grasp his jacket to keep you upright. He tasted like spearmint gum and coffee, and smelled like home. You were safe with Taron, and you were thankful. Ever so thankful. 

His tongue gently ran across your bottom lip, needing to have you closer. And you gladly parted your lips, letting his mouth mould with yours perfectly. He was all you would ever need, and all you ever wanted.


End file.
